The Earth's Basic Rights
Our home, Planet Earth, is a living organism - not an object to be utilised for power, over-exploited, or speculated with.
It is not the sovereign territory of any one nation, unless that of the creative force itself which created it, regardless of whether one conceives of this force as God, as a creative principle or as the meaningful interaction of natural forces.
The Earth is a part of the whole universe and is subject to cosmic forces which we, its tiny inhabitants have to recognise and comply with, if we wish to survive.
We should give the Earth the same rights which we as people give ourselves and which we have proclaimed as human rights.
Article 1: The dignity of the Earth is inviolable.
Article 2: The Earth has the right to life and to the protection of its well-being.
Article 3: Any form of exploitation, serfdom, or humiliation is forbidden; the Earth may not be haggled over, desecrated, or abused.
Article 4: The Earth may not be - tortured with poisons, contaminated by waste gases or rubbish, misused with weapons, viruses or poison gases, or violated by nuclear waste or nuclear explosions.Its atmosphere deserves protection as much as the private life of individuals.
Article 5: Everything which we huMans call our property originates from the Earth and actually belongs to it, from corn, wood and medicines to the ore used to make motors and money. We have to return this loan in an undamaged condition, not as poisonous waste or radioactive debris.
Article 6: The rights of the Earth should be enshrined as a major component of international law and of all constitutions. Attacks upon and infringements of the well-being of the Earth are to be publicised as 'earth crimes'. The use of the death penalty against trees, waterways, species, children and future aenerations should be abolished.
Article 7: The Earth's right to protection as a basis for all life includes the duty. to cure the Earth also. We humans have to stop being thieves and parasites on this planet and become its gardeners and protectors.
Article 8: To achieve this, all those humans who are aware of their responsibilities need to cooperate in order to draw up plans for a new, protective and restorative way of treating the Earth - concrete, imaginative and realisable - and to implement these plans. The experiences, age-old wisdom and the needs of so-called indigenous peoples should be given special consideration in that undertaking.
Article 9: Each individual is responsible for upholding the rights of the Earth. Politicians are to remove the official blessing given to the destruction of the Earth, to call to account all those who cause environmental pollution and to replace the politics of over-exploitation with different ideas for a sustainable use of the Earth's resources. They are directly responsible to our children as the inheritors of the Earth.
Article 10: These the basic rights of the Earth take effect as we, the citizens of the Earth, practise them. Each of us must consider each of our actions from the point of view of its effect on the Earth, whether we are treating it as a sewer, or as our home planet, which nourishes and sustains us.This gives us the opportunity of putting into practice the unwritten and unprescribable inner principles of thankfulness, love and vitality.
© Birgit Berg
WORTWERKSTATT POESIE & POLITIK
To publish and to write over this text is allowed, when it is in the interest of "the earth's right". Please sign who had created this text. Any comercial with this text is not allowed.
"The Earth's Basic Rights" were pronounced the first time at "Earth Day" 22.April.1990 in Freiburg/South Germany. At 1993 the "Earth's Basic Rights" were the motto of the whole German "Earth Day".
Information about the global "Earth Day" find at www.earthday.net